Gwynne Young

Independent Contractor

Gwynne Young is a former newspaper writer, columnist and copy editor who has managed online content for several companies, including Pets.com and Gartner. She has a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

CEO Compensation: Heck of a Job. Take These Millions and Get Out of Here!

1 comments 1,500 reads

Posted on 2008-09-19

When I put out the call for articles about performance management, several authors responded with opinions about how best to manage employees. But so far, no one has said anything about executive performance and pay.

But what about it? How do you measure executive performance, particularly that of CEOs? Today, The New York Times editorializes (Bankers and Their Salaries) about CEO compensation in light of the economic crisis. The Times editorial board rightly, in my opinion, argues that when the government bails out financial institutions, those huge salaries and severance packages should not be part of the deal. A CEO should not be rewarded for having steered the ship into the ground.

I think The New York Times doesn't go far enough. What about other businesses? Why is it that when the embattled Home Depot CEO was pushed out, he went...

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Do You Have Change for a Twenty? In the Age of the ATM, Too Many Small Businesses Drop the Ball

1 comments 1,877 reads

Posted on 2008-02-28

Does your ATM give out anything but $20 bills? Mine doesn't. Yet everywhere I go, I encounter people in the business of taking money who don't have change for a $20.

My insurance copayment is $10, but my doctor's office never has change. The receptionist told me, "They don't give me change." Sure, blame it on "They."

The physical therapist I'm seeing to regain the use of my recently unbroken arm also doesn't carry change.

I went to a public parking lot yesterday that had self-service parking permit machines. They spit out permits for $7. The machines accepted $1, $5 and $10 bills and would have accepted coins, except someone had put a lot of electrical tape over the coin slot. I had a $5, three $20s and a lot of quarters. I turned to the line that was forming behind me and asked if anyone had two dollars for eight quarters. Three people waved $20 bills at me. Oops.

When I was in high school and worked part time as a movie theater cashier, I had to...

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What's the Difference Between CRM and CEM? A Heck of a Lot, Some Say

2 comments 8,649 reads

Posted on 2006-06-25

When Starbucks creates a home away from home for people to meet, drink, be seen and compute, is it customer relationship management? When video game companies invite users to modify the games and then sell those modified games, are they practicing customer relationship management?

A lot of people are starting to answer "no" to those questions. Setting aside the fact that many people use the term CRM synonymously with systems and technology, CRM and CEM are really different beasts, these same business leaders and management consultants say.

"Do I have a relationship with 17 million people?" asked Jim VonDerheide, vice president, CRM Strategies, for Hilton Hotels in a conversation I had with him for a white paper on customer experience management. "I don't think I do," VonDerheide said, answering his own question. "Do I interact with 17 million people? You bet."

When you're sitting at a Starbucks typing out...

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How Can a Customer-Centric Auto Mechanic Achieve Profitable Growth?

0 comments 4,887 reads

Posted on 2005-12-20

In this inaugural edition of Gurus on the Case, an automotive service/repair shop owner seeks help to grow his customer-centric business more profitably. Read how four gurus would meet the challenge and join the discussion to offer your own opinion.

Guru recommendations
Business owner's reaction

When you think of auto shops, you might not necessarily think of CRM and customer-centricity. But Mitchell Harmatz does. In 2001, after 16 years of selling commercial real estate, Harmatz bought Park Plaza Automotive (www.parkplazaautomotive.com), a Shell gas station and automotive service/repair shop serving the affluent Southern California community of San Pedro on the Palos Verdes Peninsula (per capita income is $80,000).

Since then, he has used CRM...

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RBC Finds a Customer-First Strategy Builds Loyalty and Profit

0 comments 6,279 reads

Posted on 2005-09-11

The typical thinking with banking is that you want to get rid of the bottom-feeders: older customers whose assets will not appreciate and younger customers who have yet to amass funds. And by the same token, those lower-income, seemingly less profitable, customers can be less than thrilled with their bank—particularly when the ATM flashes "insufficient funds."

The Royal Bank of Canada, however, takes a different approach with customers. Take the typical trouble with insufficient funds. If you're at the ATM trying to withdraw more money than is in your account, the automated teller machine asks if you want to get the cash, anyway, for a fee.

That's smart business, because instead of a customer getting keyed up over receiving a dunning notice from a bank, he or she is empowered. The customer has the choice of taking the cash and accepting the fee or not. It's all about balance, says Cathy Burrows, director of enterprise information and customer...

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How Intrawest Used CRM To Build a Brand

0 comments 3,171 reads

Posted on 2005-07-27

An odd thing happened to a woman who had bought property in a British Columbia ski resort. No one tried to market her on anything for a full year after her purchase.

That, according to Linda Denis, vice president for customer relationship marketing for Intrawest, was the event that triggered a major change in the way Intrawest, developer of the resort, Whistler Blackcomb, does business.

Denis, a keynote speaker at CRMGuru's CustomerThink Leadership Summit 2005, said a phone call from the woman was the company's first indication that it needed to do a better job.

The woman, who had a background in direct marketing, placed a call into Intrawest's corporate office and said, "I just spent $600,000 on you, and I have not received one piece of marketing." The real estate people had done their work, but the direct-marketing people had not picked up the ball to try to sell her lift tickets or encourage her to take advantage of other...

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Solution Providers Honored With 1st CRMGuru Summit Awards

0 comments 1,695 reads

Posted on 2005-07-27
When it comes to CRM solutions, customers, more than anything, want a product that works for them, simply, easily and for the bulk of their business needs. CRM customers and vendor partners made that abundantly clear in a comprehensive online survey conducted by CRMGuru.com.

Based on the results of that survey, we are proud to announce the honorees of the first CRMGuru Summit Awards for CRM Solution Excellence. These CRM solution providers led in seven categories:
- Large Enterprise Multi-Function CRM: Oracle's PeopleSoft CRM
- Small-Medium Business Multi-Function CRM: Onyx
- Marketing Automation: SPSS
- Sales Force Automation: Salesforce.com
- Customer Service and Support: RightNow Technologies
- Contact Management: Maximizer Software
- Partner Relationships: Sage CRM (formerly ACCPAC CRM)
"This year's CRMGuru Summit Award recipients are setting the example for...
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Erase Dumb Contacts, Melt Snowballs and Enhance the Voice of the Customer

0 comments 1,739 reads

Posted on 2005-07-18

The best way to approach customer contact is to work to eliminate the need for contact at all. That was the message from Bill Price, president of Driva Solutions and first vice president in charge of global customer service for Amazon.com, speaking before delegates at the CustomerThink Leadership Summit in June in Santa Cruz, California.

That doesn't mean getting rid of your call or contact center. Far from it, says Price. It means concentrating on big-ticket items, listening to your customers and making sure the agents are working to their strengths.

While you'll never really eliminate the need for contact, you can drive it down. And doing so addresses the two competing forces involved in maintaining a contact center: the need to make your customers happy and the difficulty hiring and retaining good contact agents.

Doing things the same old way isn't going to work, if for no other reason than the "almost epidemic" percentages in...

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You Know You Don't Have a Customer-Centric Strategy When ...

0 comments 1,941 reads

Posted on 2005-07-11

Customer-centricity. Loyalty. Blah blah blah. Let's face it, when it comes down to it, if you're an executive worth your salt, you know the truth: Customers just get in the way.

They whine. They take up valuable call center time. They're never happy with the way you do business. They hate the product. Or they want it to work. And, oh, if only they'd stop returning everything.

They want the service offered at their convenience, when they're best able to make use of it.

And they always want discounts. And they notice every single price change, especially those made between their quotes and their final bills.

They want you to remember their name, their purchases, their specific needs. They want to deal with the same agent and they yell if they're put on hold.

What a pain. If only they'd just turn over their money and be done with it.

Who really needs a customer-centric strategy, anyway? Clearly, you don't. But how can...

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Mobile Phone Operator? You're It!

0 comments 2,138 reads

Posted on 2005-05-16

Mobile phone use in Great Britain is becoming something of a game, according to a study commissioned by a major call-center software provider. The survey shows that when people aren't happy with a provider's service, they just switch. A quarter of young people have switched mobile service provider as a result of bad call center customer service, the survey of more than 2,000 British mobile users found. The survey, conducted for software provider Corizon by pollsters YouGov, also found that the situation was almost as severe across the broader population.

Overall, 1 in 5 users—or 19 percent—across all age groups have switched mobile operator at least once, as a reaction to what they considered inadequate customer service. And of those who haven't switched, more than a quarter (27 percent) said they have considered doing so.

Customers are fed up with the amount of time it takes to deal with their issues, both before being connected to a live agent and...

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